Episode 32 - Maria James

0:14 Welcome back to Crime Besties. We are here for another episode of our podcast, so thanks for joining us again. Oh. Yeah, and your voice is somewhat back, but I know, correct? So we've actually had a week off recording, so our last recording was two weeks ago. And I think in that recording I was like, oh, I'm just sort of getting over being sick. Turns out I'm still coughing and still a bit congested, but I don't think I sound quite as sexy as I did. Last time, unfortunately, not quite as sexy. Yeah, yeah.

0:45 But I mean. It's OK. So again, apologies if you know, coughing and all that sort of happens in the background. I'll do my best to to get through. But yeah, anyway, how have you been? Yeah, good, good, good. Oh gosh, school gone back this week. Crazy, which is, I mean, I've loved these school holidays. We've had a great time but I'm ready for routine so. I'm the same. So. So I was saying to one of my colleagues at work, I'm like, I'm really ready to get back into routine, but my God, it's a rude shock.

1:13 Oh, because everything goes back in this school week. So you're back at school, you're making lunch boxes every day. All the sporting activities are back. Everything. It's just like, it's you go from nothing, literally everything in the space of a day. Yeah. Well, literally I went back two days before the kids kind of into work as well. Like, it's so I feel like I've well leaned into these holidays. I felt and I was not prepared. OK. I literally last night was like, I finished doing dinner with all all those sorts of things and I'm like, I'm sitting on the couch and I sat down and went, oh, no.

1:44 I could literally fall asleep because I've done 3 days of work in a row already. What? Yeah, I was like, exhausted. But my kids, after their first day back, they were pretty done too. So my kids were absolutely tanked last night. Yeah. I mean, it's a good thing, I think, you know, let's get them back into their routines and stuff. But yeah, I'm, I'm sort of glad that it's two days they're at school and then we've got the weekend. Although did you notice we've got an 8:00 AM basketball game for the young ones on?

2:13 Saturdays. Oh, and all the way where it is because that's the my furthest travel. Yeah. Oh, and 8:00 AM it. Feels. Worse, they are the worst. I can't wait until they go up to under 10s cause at least then you're less likely to get an 8:00 AM game. Well, literally, 'cause my older ones, the under 10s, you know, in the, in that group chat, we've got the rest of the, the season got announced and it got put into the group chat like, yeah, everyone, we're no, no 88 AM games ever again. Yeah, like because then they'd be able to under twelves and then that's not gonna happen.

2:42 It's not even a thing. So we're like, you know, you never have to do them under the 8:00 AM game game again. Yeah. And all these people going, this is amazing. And I'm like sitting here going, my younger one has them still, like and I've got them. We've got quite a few this season. Yes, unfortunately I feel like. I feel like we've gotten them pretty much more often than not. Yeah, and if it's not 8:00 AM, it's 8840. You know. Yeah. Yeah, so annoying. Anyway, they love it so. Oh. They do. And I am.

3:07 Look, I'm really looking forward to getting back to watching the sports I do. I love watching their sports in the mornings. I really love it. But me too. It's just they're getting up and getting there. Yeah, Yeah. I mean, at least there aren't lunch boxes. Yes, that's true. On Saturdays, yeah. On the weekends, yeah, that's true. Anything worse than doing lunch boxes well. See, I feel like I've got one kid who I love making a lunch box for because he loves for anything. And he also, yeah, food. And he, he, he always comes up with like these creative ideas.

3:35 Yes. One of our friends actually sent me a TikTok the other day of these lunchbox ideas. And one of the things that she sent was a rice paper roll. And Oliver loves a rice paper roll. Love a rice. But it had chicken Caesar salad in it. Oh, yeah. So it had croutons. Yeah, roast chicken, Yes, the lettuce, Parmesan, Caesar salad dressing. And you wrap that all up. Yeah. And Oliver's like, oh, mum, you have to make them for me. I'm like, oh. Actually over this, I watched a video of like a woman where she made a Caesar salad, but then she like cut it all up like really, really small and made it into a wrap.

4:08 And I'm like, oh, that's a really good idea. I mean, it's still the same flavours. You don't necessarily need it being like full and intact. Like, you know, it's like, oh. That makes it much, I don't know, easier sandwich to make for sure. Yes, Yeah, down for that, yeah. So I've got some good ideas. But then my younger one, sort of similar to your kids. Yes, he's, he literally eats the same thing every single day. So I mean, well, his lunch box is probably easier to put together because I don't have to.

4:36 Think. Think. Yeah, you know, it's, it's boring. It is and it's, it's that, but the issue with the strict lunch box is with, with somebody who's more flexible, it's like, oh, I'm out of this. Oh well, I'll put this in instead, you know. But with them it's. You have to have the things on hand. Afterwards I missed the first day of doing them 'cause I didn't have to do them yesterday was I haven't put the yoghurts and your cults and stuff in. OK, So they'll be mad with me, Yeah. I hear you. Yeah. Anyway, out of routine.

5:08 We'll get back into it. Next week's a new week. Yeah. One of our fans actually from one of my friends from work, Joe, she was saying she's like, let's just write off January. January's been a bit of AI. Don't know things have happened. It hasn't been the best month. Like, you know, she's had stuff going on. Lots of people have. Yeah, I've been sick. We've had lots of and Ollie was sick as well. I don't know. It just wasn't the best start to 2025. She's like, that's fine, 'cause the year doesn't actually start until Feb, so.

5:40 So truly, it doesn't. Start yeah, Feb So she's like don't worry about it. We've got a new fresh start on your Feb. So we're recording this on the 31st of January, so from tomorrow. Yeah, it's a new year. It's a new year, we're all good. It's all fresh. We're going to start afresh and things are going to be good. We're going to be getting those groceries that we need and we're going to be on top of everything. Oh. Joe, I'm down for that, yeah. So here's for that one, Joe. It makes me feel a whole lot better at.

6:05 All exactly. No, yeah, I'm definitely up for that whole fresh start. Yeah, because January, it's just, I think especially because I'm off the whole time too, it just means it's just this limbo land of a whole other. It's a whole other land that I live in in that time. And then it's yeah, reality we. Find it, I find it so funny. So like, I work in the healthcare industry, but a lot of what we do relies on patients, I guess, wanting to do certain testing, right? And it's not necessarily urgent in most cases.

6:36 So we find for US, January is dead. The second school goes back, we are like straight back into it. And that is exactly what happened yesterday. Yeah. So yesterday morning we were so quiet. So it's first day back at school for Victorians at the very least. Yes, yesterday morning we were really quiet. Then after everyone's done the drop off and getting back home, we were so busy. The phones just went nuts with people following things up and you know, all that sort. Of it's like it's yeah, reality starts to kicking in and it's like you move into that next realm of the year is here.

7:10 Yeah, because I find even though I work through the school holidays, yeah, I still find I put everything off because the kids are around and it's just harder to do things when they're there. And I'm like, now, once they go back to school, then I'll do this or whatever. Like that was like even just recently searching for this, I found like, you know, when we're in routine and you think then when you're, when I'm working and I've got the kids doing all this stuff, you think you've got less time to do stuff.

7:33 But I actually find I find it much easier to research because I have my a lot of times I know how my week works. Whereas when it was free for all and the kids are around more, I didn't, I found it really hard to find time to research where it should have been. Like, I've got all the time in the world to research. Like should be doing this easy. Yeah. No, I'm really I'm looking forward to next week's research because I feel like it'll just happen far more. Well, I hope. So stay tuned to the end of the episode, we'll let you know what we're researching, but my goodness, it's going to be a big one.

7:58 Oh, yes, that's true. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my gosh. But yeah, we're ready. We're raring to go. Ready for Feb? Yeah, yeah. The start, the official start of the year. All right. So today we are talking about Maria Teresa James. So this is a really famous case in Victoria especially. Yeah, Maria lived in Thornbury. So that was back in the day, that was a really sort of working class suburb. And I mean today it's certainly not like that at all. It's it's a very sort of hip and up and coming type of suburb.

8:36 Lots of like very trendy people, trendy place. Yeah. Living and around in and around Thornbury. Maria owned a bookshop at 736 High Street in Thornbury and well, she not only did she work there, she actually lived out the back of the second hand book shop that she owned. So yeah, she lived quite an eclectic life. Like, I can't imagine, you know, back in the day, I know like our local milk bar owner, they lived, Yeah, the milk Bar like it was just a quite common to have these kinds of businesses where people.

9:14 I think in closer into the city even more so, like around the like Thornbury area, it was, you know, you either you live above the shop that you run or, you know, at the back kind of thing. So yeah, I mean, these days they probably have gutted those and turned them into bigger houses or bigger shops. But you know, back then it was, you know, you did all, all in one. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, almost like working from home. Oh, suck. But you know, very convenient because I mean, I guess you could sit out the back and, you know, in her own house and have her doing her washing and have a cup of tea or whatever.

9:40 And then if she heard the bell ring of the front door with the with the bookshop, I'm on work just time now and I pop out the front. So yeah, worked for her very well. I think so. Maria was a single mum by this stage and she had two sons. So we're going to talk about this. We were discussing this this morning and timeline for this case is really complex because as the timeline progresses, we then in the future find out things that happened. And so we're going to do our very best to kind of explain things in blocks, I guess is the the best way to do it.

10:15 So Maria James was found dead on the on Tuesday the 17th of June in 1980 in her bedroom by her ex-husband John James. Yeah, the way this all came about is such a fascinating story. And I think we probably also need to just really quickly pop in that this was actually our favorite detective Ronidal's first ever homicide case. I think he was like 25 years old or something. Such a young, so, so many photos and video clips and stuff of like, and I keep trying to spot him but you can't because it's like he used to see him as he who he is now.

10:56 And I'm like, oh gosh, they're trying to find the young Ronidal's in there. Like, yeah, and they're all wearing their like almost bell bottom sort of suits or like, and then. Yes, it's all. It's all very, very cute. Yeah. So this was actually. So Ron, as a homicide detective, solved 99% of the cases that he worked. He had a. Total of 320 homicide cases and solved 99% of them. Incorrect. Like that is unheard of in terms of a track record. But to this day, the first case, this Maria James case that he worked on has not been solved.

11:34 And I know you, you watch interviews with Ron. We've seen Ron talk about this case live. It's always something he gets asked about because it is an anomaly in his career. Yeah. But he also says that when when you hear him interviewed about this case, he often talks about the fact that he was learning, he didn't know and there were so many errors and mistakes that happened. And we will absolutely get into all of that as we go through. But you know, he said, he learnt so much from doing. This as well.

12:05 He made changes, I think as he progressed through his career, obviously of like realizing, you know, after the fact of like, yeah, that's that was wrong of us to have done that, you know, back in that case. So I think he's, he, he brought so much to the team in that sense that, you know, being the young, young one on the, on the, the group that he brought through some real change along the way. Yeah. To make sure these cases were getting solved. Yeah. But I mean, not to, I think it was lack of knowledge of in general policing wasn't anyone's direct fault.

12:33 I think they were thought they were doing the right thing. Absolutely. It wasn't someone, you know. Well, we'll get into the fact that there might have been other things at play. But yeah, in general sense, the police officers were doing what was normal procedure of the era. Yes. But yeah, then obviously they've learnt from those things and have changed them up as as they've gone along. Yeah. Absolutely. So on the morning of the 17th or actually we probably should start the day before or should we?

13:01 I don't know. I actually don't know what it's that. Let's start on the morning of. Yeah, on the morning of the of Tuesday, the 17th of June in 1980, Maria takes her. So she's got two sons named Adam and Mark. Adam is 11 years of age and he has a disability. He has cerebral palsy and Tourette's syndrome. Yeah. And Mark is aged 13, so Adam's older brother. And they go to different schools. So Adam goes to a special development school and Mark goes to the local Catholic. I think he was in Grade 6 at the time.

13:36 Yeah, he was. Oh, he's got to be in year 7 because he was like 13, wasn't he? Yeah, I feel like he. Yeah, maybe. Maybe. Anyway, he went to the local Catholic school. School. Yeah. And so this more on this particular morning, Maria's made them scrambled eggs, which apparently during the winter was their absolute favorite. Go to everyday scrambled eggs on toast for Brekie. Totally get that get. That. Love it and she so mark goes off to school on his own. He walks off and goes on his merry way and Maria takes Adam to the bus stop where his special development school will pick up all the kids you know on their way and off and take them off to the.

14:17 Should we note in terms of Adam, like I think people, people could very wrongly assume that Adam's disabilities meant that he was intellectually affected and he wasn't. He's, you know, he, he was very, he's quite an intelligent, you know, man now boy at the time even he can be hard to understand because with, with the various disabilities he's, he's impacted with. But in terms of his intelligence, he was, you know, able, able to articulate himself. Very absolutely, yeah. And he's got his own thoughts, feelings, opinions.

14:50 And that he can. Express absolutely. And you know, there's. Yeah, definitely. So I. Think and he's got a lot of very valid things to say, which again we will, we will get to that. Yeah, that's a good to. It could be very easily dismissed that with with things like cerebral palsy and Tourette's that he could be just not have a lot to say or you know, you know. Or that or that what he has to contribute might not be right or. Or valid potentially. Yeah, that definitely will come into this. Yeah, absolutely.

15:18 On the way home from dropping Adam at his bus stop, Maria stops to buy a cake from a cake shop and heads back home. So as we were saying, she had a business in the front of her, in the front of her house. Apparently there was something like 22,000 books or something in that place. And you see, have you seen photos of what it looks like inside the bookshop? It was patched chockers floor to ceiling. There was not. Even the windows, the front just was, you know, books all in the. Stacked with books, Yeah.

15:49 There was she. She. Bought and sold books like so yeah, second hand bookshop but. Yeah. Amazing. Incredible. Like, yeah. And you think some of those books could have been there forever? Yeah. And never been touched or seen by anyone because imagine trying to, you know, shuffle. Shuffle because. That fire, yeah, yeah, I'm sure she had a system. She must have. Yeah, she must have, because. I think she was a very intelligent woman. Yeah, I know she was. She was very well respected in the community and she sounded like she had a bit of a sparky personality and she had lots of friends.

16:21 And I mean, I guess if you weren't a business in the High Street and there's people walking past all the time, you would you'd become you're sort of part of that scene on you and everyone kind of knows you and there. Was certainly regular business coming through there like it was, you know, there was multiple people coming in a day. It wasn't like it sat there without customers. Yeah, I feel like in this day and age, maybe that would be the case. But yeah, it sounds like it was a thriving business.

16:42 It was certainly enough to keep per afloat. And the two boys. Yeah, her her ex-husband John was definitely involved in the kids lives and they had a very amicable relationship. They they always talked about things to do with the boys and and they'd catch up for coffees every now and then. I think Maria and John felt like they could call one another. Yeah, you know, for anything that they needed. So, you know, they still had a a relationship in which, you know, they had the boys best interests at heart.

17:12 And absolutely. Yeah. And that all worked for them. Yeah. So Maria came home. She's got this cake. And at about 11:30. Well, even just before that, she was seen with two real estate agents on Mansfield St. Mr. Surinotis and Mr. Mazevsky. I don't know, say that. Good on you, I reckon. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. Yeah. So 2 real estate agents she was seen on the street with as well. Prior just having a having. A having a chat, yeah, yeah. At 11:30 she phoned her ex-husband. So he was what was he a town clerk or?

17:52 Something. Yeah. He was a clerk, Yeah. Yeah. And so she called him at work. Yeah. And he wasn't there. His secretary took a message and she said, Yep, I'll give go. He'll be back really soon. I'll get him to give you a call back, which he did. Yeah, he very promptly called her back because. He's in the office 7 minutes, someone said. It was like quite quite quick, the turn around. Which is, you know, he's an ex-husband. He could have just got to work and gone, you know? Oh, yeah, whatever. But he's immediately called her back.

18:19 Yeah. So I think that goes to show the type of, yeah, the relationship they had for sure. Definitely respectful of one another, yeah. Maria gave no indication to his secretary. What the call might have been about, but it certainly wasn't unusual for Maria to call him at work if there was something that they needed to discuss as well. So, yeah, you know, it was a run-of-the-mill type of type of thing, Maria. So when John called, Maria answered the phone and then not very like literally seconds into the phone call, she says, oh, hang on.

18:54 And he, she's obviously has put the receiver down because we're back in the day with corded phones attached to a wall or a, you know, you're sort of hooked to a table or wherever the phone might be. And John can hear in the background that there's another voice, can't hear, can't make out what they're saying, but he, he knows someone's obviously come to the door. John listens, and he thinks he can hear an argument or there's certainly terse words being spoken. And then he says he hears a startled Yelp.

19:27 So not a scream, but a startled Yelp and startled conversation. So this actually concerns him. So he starts to like scream down the phone to kind of make Sloor to. Like trying to get like you know their hurt someone's attention like. To be like, I'm on the phone, like, what's going on? Come back, Maria. Like, are you OK? Yeah. He hears another Yelp at this point. Yeah. And he's very, very concerned. So he goes. Then he hears silence. Yeah. Well, nothing. And I think that's almost scarier than hearing noise at some point.

20:02 Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Incredibly concerned, he leaves work. He says to his secretary, I've got to go and figure out what's going on here. This just didn't seem right. And he gets to Maria's house and place of work somewhere between 12:10 and 12:20 in the afternoon. Now he goes to the front door of the shop and it is locked, which is unusual because the open sign is on the door. He then goes around the back to enter the house, the house part of the building, the back door, which is essentially like the house or.

20:37 Yeah, yeah. And that's also locked. So he's like, oh, that's strange. You can't hear anyone inside. But he's concerned enough that he actually goes to a neighbour's house then to try and ring Maria's phone again to see like, are you still home? Is everything OK? Yeah, he goes to the neighbour. Because again, we're in an era at the minute where there's no mobile phones or anything like that. He tries to ring, but he gets an engaged signal. So he's like. It's clearly off the hook still from his phone call.

21:05 Exactly. Yeah, No, he wants to. Put it back on, yeah. I have to. I have to. Oh, that's the other thing. Sorry. As he's walking to the neighbour's house, he sees the curtain move. Yes. In the window. Yeah. He sees the movement inside, so which is corroborated them by someone else who comes to the front of the shop and to be as a customer and tries to go in. And they also said they saw a curtain move too. Yeah, yeah. So that's incredibly concerning. Yeah. So hearing nothing, seeing nothing. Front and the back.

21:34 He tried like between the two. I think he tried almost four times on each. Okay, so he's gone back and forth and back and forth, right? Yeah, yeah. And then gone to have a look, gone to see whether he can find a neighbor to use their phone. Yes. Yeah, Okay, yeah. So at this point he's obviously very concerned. So he actually climbs in an open window and calls out to Maria, like Maria, Maria, and he has no response. So he starts to walk through the house and he gets to Maria's bedroom, walks just inside, so her door is open.

22:06 He walks just inside and sees her body lying on the floor and there's blood around her head. This bit gets me. I mean #1 how horrific would that be? God, to his credit, he doesn't do. He doesn't touch her. I mean, I think he, I. Think he was he could tell she was dead. Yeah, there was a no. Yeah, she wasn't moving, breathing. And I guess the shock of it too. You would just go into action. I've got to get help, I think was his, you know? Oh, my God, this. This is not for me to, you know, I need someone else here like, yeah.

22:43 So she's lying face down on the floor. Have you seen the crime scene photos? Yeah. Oh my gosh. It just looks like she's just being discarded on the floor. Yeah, well, which is? Pretty much. That's unfortunately that's probably the best way to do describe it, I think. It's just it's horrible. So I mean, you can, you can see these photos online if that's something that you feel that you would like to do. So hands are bound and there's 68 stab wounds to her body. 6868. Horrific. It's frenzied. It's, they're all close as well.

23:28 They're like, you know, the, the, in terms of the pool and splatter of blood. It's not like it's everywhere. No, it's like they, you know, the first couple of blows probably took her down and then they've continued the perpetrator or perpetrators have continued then. To keep, keep going because. And he actually, when he first saw the body and he, he thought that was like something spilt on her like dust of some sort, like a powder or something. But then when he's sort of taking it in properly, he's realized, Oh no, that's not something on her shirt like that.

24:02 That's the stab marks, like where the knife's gone in. Shirt, shirt. Yeah, yeah. Oh, it's just horrible. So he immediately, he leaves back through the bedroom door and calls 000 immediately at the neighbour. Yeah. With at the neighbour's house, yeah. He then goes back to wait for the police at the he goes back to the bookshop, to the front of the bookshop. And as he goes there, the front door of the bookshop is now open. Yes. Now, in the time that John was making this Triple O call, a woman driving down the street, driving down High Street, witnessed a man running away from the bookshop covered in blood, right?

24:54 So she says that this man was wearing a white shirt. Yeah, and blue jeans and blue trousers Blue. Trousers, yeah. So I don't know if that meant jeans or whether it was like slacks. Yes. I I actually don't know, no. Another witness saw a black figure. So a man, a short stocky man wearing black all black clothes, a black shirt and black pants, standing in the doorway of the bookshop again around this time. Yeah, because other people were coming to the front and buzzing the shop. Wanting to get in and.

25:28 Trying to get in and have a look. Yeah, yeah. So the police arrive, and I mean, well, sorry, as as John comes back after making his Triple O call, there is actually a a patron, somebody inside the bookshop looking at her books like not knowing anything had happened. No. Yes. As well. So so much has happened in this, like very short amount of. Time we're looking at the triple O call came through at 1232 Yep. So if we're saying he like John has arrived between 12:10 and 12:20, yeah and gone back and forth four times around trying to get in, has eventually got in, you know, called from the neighbours place, all these things fairly short timeline of things going on.

26:14 Yeah. And but and then in the time frame of going to the next door neighbour to call Triple O at 12:32 and then coming back to the house and there's yeah. And there's some customer just like in the front and obviously has gained access through the front door of it being unlocked. Yeah, So what the police actually think happened was when John entered the bedroom and found Maria's body there, that the killer was actually hiding behind the door. Which doesn't so as magic. Oh, my God, I couldn't. You couldn't sleep.

26:39 No, I mean, you couldn't sleep anywhere. No. After what he'd witnessed. But to know that you could have been another victim of whoever this was, he knew it was, well, magic. Yeah. I'd. I to me, it's more of the fact of like, you know, he could have, he could have been killed too. Like, I mean, this person would have, you know, I. Just I agree. I I think he probably would have been, yeah. I think he's so lucky he didn't like just knock the door and realise there was someone there or, you know, like if he just stepped in a bit further and in panic and, you know, I don't know, stumbled towards the door and realised why there's someone I. Feel like, I feel like I would have done that.

27:11 I feel like if I saw. I don't know. I mean, you never know what you're gonna do in a situation like that, but I thought I, I thought it showed great restraint on his part to. Leave it preserve the scene yeah, whether. And that wasn't a thing back then in a lot of ways. Like, yeah, But he. He says that he says that like he did it because he just wanted the police to see exactly what he saw. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I guess part of his brain too, would be like, you know, I didn't do this. You don't want to be, you know, like, I mean, sure, I guess is part of it too.

27:38 Yeah. He doesn't want to be pulled into this of like, you've done this to her. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, if he'd gone in and say, knelt down toward to her or something, this killer could have come from behind him and he could have been the next victim. Oh my God. So easily. Oh, it's just. Crazy. Yeah, yeah. Crazy, crazy, crazy. There's another witness that sees a man who's around 5 foot 8, late 30s, early 40s, chubby with hairy arms running away in a direction away from the bookstore. Yeah. At Lutton.

28:10 Street, yeah, at around this time, yeah. So apparently this man was balding. The worker was a railway signal man. And like, his statement remained the same. He made multiple statements over many, many years, and he'd never changed what he said. Yeah. So, you know, that's another thing just to keep in mind. On the same on that Hutton St., another witness was driving along and saw a man run across the road in front of the car because her husband was driving and she was in the passenger seat. She saw him run across the road.

28:42 It was. And she saw a figure very similar build to the other descriptions, covered in blood. Yeah. Yeah, she said she was the one who said his sleeves were rolled up and and his arms were covered in blood. Yes. Yeah. So at this stage, it's time to pick the kids up from school. Yeah. So Mark was collected from school by their local priest, Father Bongiorno, who took him home. The police were there. Media was everywhere. His dad was still there being interviewed by the police. Because I mean, I guess, I guess the first thing the police had to do was rule out John as a suspect because I mean, he's the ex-husband.

29:25 He's found the body. That's, you know, yeah, quite suspect, I suppose. Potentially, yeah. But they were able to easily corroborate his story. The. Secretary's passing on the phone call, the fact that the phone was still off the hook from that call, there was some. Neighbour who said, you know, he came to try and ring Maria and then make the triple O call like the the neighbour was quite invested in what was going on so. Yeah, His story was completely corroborated by everyone that could corroborate it.

29:53 You know, that was Yeah, there so. He was. He was actually ruled out. Yeah, pretty early on. Yeah. What the police did next is something that Ron now says, I don't know why we did this. And I didn't realize at the time, given it was his first homicide case, he's like, I didn't realize that this was something that we shouldn't have been doing. But they, the shop was set up as like the local command center under which the police were conducting their, yeah, their operation. I mean, again, it makes sense to for people to come in like their eyewitness accounts.

30:29 They knew where to come to to come and give that statement that they could gather all that information. The police actually put a handwritten note on the front door. Like it looks like they've just cut a bit of cardboard out of something. Like maybe like an old cereal box. That's literally. Out of the kitchen like. Yeah. And just written police operations and stuck it to the door of the. Yeah, stuck it to the door of the of the shop, Yeah. And then they literally did it, conducted these, you know, interviews with eyewitnesses and things in the kitchen of their the home.

31:00 People would walk past the bedroom, which yes, obviously at that point the body had been removed and things and the furniture had been sort of moved and taken away for, you know, preserving those things. But there was still the large blood. Like Ron was saying they weren't cleaners back in that those days because that's something we could do another episode on. But yeah, the cleaners don't wouldn't come in those times. So there was just still the blood stained carpet all in the room. So people would come into the house and pass that and sit in the kitchen and have these interviews.

31:30 But then they would, you know, hey, would you have a cup of tea while you're doing this and use all the the crockery and things and crockery? And cutlery. There they'd make a sandwich and they'd use the fridge and put their stuff in for the day before they were there. And yeah, so everything was being touched and handled and we had more people in the room and in the house. I think it's worth noting that when the police arrived on the kitchen table, there were two coffee cups and the cake was there, you know, hadn't been touched.

31:57 So that's in and of itself, that's interesting. But then however many hundreds of people have potentially then gone through and used these cups and used the cutlery and used all of that stuff. Ron was saying they were working 12 to 14 hour days, seven days a week for three months out of that site. Yeah. So that you can just imagine how many people were coming and going and how much contamination of the crime. Scene although they he did say that the the cups that were used, they were tested for fingerprints.

32:26 Nothing that was found on them though. But they weren't they were at least tested for that prior to maybe being put back into the rotation. Yeah, yeah. So they were at least prior to that, but not ideal at all. I mean, yeah, we know that now, yes. Yeah, Mark recalls meeting Ron for the first time at his house that afternoon and recalls Ron's and pathetic nature. And so, I mean, Ron just seems like, you know, such a salt of the earth type of a guy as a 25 year old, young, inexperienced detective.

33:02 He still had that as he had the whole, you know, personality, I guess. And that made a massive impact on Mark at a time where, I guess, you know, for a young boy to experience such tragedy in his life, to have somebody, you know, a young pop who's sort of taken you under their wing, I can see how Mark would have derived comfort, comfort from that. Totally. To know that someone's, you know, this is awful, this awful things happened, but there's someone who is, you know, approachable but you feel like is gonna get the job done that needs to get done.

33:38 Like, you know, 'cause you wanna know who did this to your mum? Yeah. Oh my goodness. Absolutely. Yeah. So Ron was saying their methodology was because. So this isn't the time before computers and all of that sort of stuff. So when they're investigating something, they have an index book, Yes. And it's fascinating. It's so fascinating. So they would say they had a person of interest named Bill Smith. They'd put it in the index book under Bill, under Smith, under short, under bold, under whatever descriptors there are for him.

34:08 Or if it's, for example, there's a red car, they'd file it under red car number plate and like N for number plate and then the actual what the number plate started with. And so the way they were keeping these records, and apparently this is how they did investigate a lot. Yeah, I think now obviously it's all digitized, but it's the same principle. They file everything in multiple ways so that you can't miss it if you're looking for a car. Someone else has mentioned a car. Hang on a minute. Well, someone else saw a red car, but this one's This is a blue car.

34:39 It's not the same car, but yeah, yeah. Amazing how they do all that. And with it being handwritten at that point in time, it would have been very time consuming. Apparently that was one person's job was literally once all the statements were taken was to go through their statement and do that all that filing and indexing of information and that would that was. Maximum time job. Oh, it would be. Yeah, it absolutely would be. Because they were getting many, many, many statements. People were coming through with lots of information.

35:05 And look, some of it's relevant, you know, but you've got to pick through this whole lot of stuff that's not relevant to. Yeah. So I mean. Everyone had to be helpful, but obviously not all of the information is helpful. You've got to decide then what's worth investigating further. And what's not. And as the bystander, you don't know where your information is helpful and you should always assume it could be and give the information and put it to the gate. Leave it to the experts to decide whether or not it is, because you never know that little snippet that you thought was absolutely irrelevant could be the case to figuring all this out.

35:35 Yeah. Absolutely, yeah. So this was such a frenzied attack. The police were like, well, it's personal something, something personal has happened here. Maria didn't have any defense wounds. She was attacked from behind. So what they, what the police think happened was that whoever she was sitting down and having this coffee with and whoever she'd bought this cake for to share morning tea, which we'll fight, we'll get to in a second,

36:05 she's run away from them and tried to go and lock herself in her bedroom. Because that that was one room that had a lock on. It it was the only room in the house that had a lockable door. She hasn't quite been able to get there without them also being able to get in. And they've stabbed her from behind. Yeah. So they think the fatal stab wound was actually inflicted quite early on in this frenzied attack. Yeah, but they have continued to stab her, as you said, 68 times. We also know that the the weapon that was used was actually a knife from her kitchen.

36:40 So like Ronnie Dolls has said that they know there's a strong belief that there wasn't the person didn't arrive there with intention to kill, that this person arrived at this house or bookshop, whichever without that intent and has used weapon, a weapon that was on hand for them. So yeah, that's. Tonight, she also suffered a significant blunt force trauma to the head. So whether that sort of knocked her out and then they were able to stab her, which caused her death, that's sort of not really that timeline.

37:13 It's not. Really, no. And the hands being bound to from the autopsy report could be. It was noted that that happened quite possibly after death. Yeah, I've got that noted as well. Yeah. What would be the motivation behind time hands they believe to? Stabilize the body to move it. OK. And then and then that was interrupted by John. So there's a lot of in the coroner's report and that's the and after the fact from what Ron has sort of brought to it as well, a lot of talk about this being sort of bit ritualistic style killing.

37:44 And so they there is belief that the hands being bound was part of that whole ritualistic aspect of it. OK, Being done after the fact because there was the way that it wasn't. It was the way the bruising was and things like that from the the tying up. It wasn't. It was clearly done after the fact. It didn't show. It wasn't something that was done prior. Yeah. So they believe that's part of the ritualistic process, but it also could help with stabilizing a body that was going to be moved. Oh wow.

38:15 Oh, poor Maria. Oh, just awful. Nah. Should we get into suspects now, do you reckon? Let's do that. Let's jump down to that. Suspect #1 the real estate agent she has seen talking to that morning, Yes, she, Maria, had actually had an affair with this real estate agent. Unbeknownst to her, I should. Say, well, unbeknownst to her, he was married. Yeah, she didn't know that. She didn't know. That she thought she was genuinely dating a person that was on the market. Yeah. And she broke it off with him when she found out he was married.

38:49 Yes. And so again, so the police put that the motive then would be that he, she broke up with him and it's a bit of a blow to the ego and you know, that sort. Of be a. That be a motive and could he have done it? Yeah, he was Alibide 100%. Like there was no shadow of a doubt. He was actually doing an open house showing and multiple people saw him. Yeah, over that whole time. Period. So he was pretty very early on, able to be ruled out for that reason, that he wasn't in the vicinity at all. Yeah. The man with the briefcase.

39:26 Yep. So Mario Falcucci was his name? Yep. He wanted to sell Maria these comic books that he had. So he lived around the corner from the bookshop, is that right? And he wanted to sell her these comic books that were quite sexually graphic in nature. And well, for that time, I'm guessing too. Like, yeah, she freaked out at them. And I mean she. Was thank you she. Was a devout Catholic as well, so maybe seeing it through that lens potentially. No, she was like, Oh no, I'm actually not gonna sell those.

39:59 Although she did sell pornography. Oh, did she? Didn't she? Yes. She had pornographic like magazines that she did sell. They were found hidden under a counter. So she obviously had a clientele who she would sell these for, but this guy seemed to be weird. Yeah. And maybe she just didn't want to engage in business with him. And he got quite angry, apparently, when he couldn't sell them to her. Yeah. So there was. Yeah, he was an interesting bloke. But I think the biggest thing with him, because this guy, this guy was Ron's front runner.

40:28 Yep. So the biggest thing with him was when they went to his house to have a look for, you know, any evidence there, they did stumble across a receipt for a dry cleaners which he had gone the following day to Maria's death to have a pair of pants cleaned. And there was a note on the receipt that they cleaned a stain that looked like that would that resembled blood, which I mean, also the other interesting thing is, yes, it's not only like there was a dry cleaner on High Street. He drove 20 minutes, 20 kilometers, 20 kilometers, Yeah, 2020 kilometers away to the dry cleaners to have that stain removed.

41:04 I mean, so sauce as hell. So that's, that's why he became Ron's front runner. Yeah, the other thing. The other thing they found when they searched his house was twine that matched the twine that was that bound Maria's out. Yeah. Out of the backyard, adding this backyard very, very distinctly like the twine that was used. Yeah. So those number of things that have really. Sort of added up. Added up for him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just absolutely crazy. Yeah, there was, yeah, the note said Query Blood stain on top of trouser.

41:32 Yeah, from the from the dry cleaner. Yes, that's right, the next one on the list would probably be the Telstra. Guy telecom worker. And the telecom? Worker back in the day wasn't Telstra. No, sorry. Oh yes, I remember those days. Same. I still remember the logo, Yes. Same. Yeah, he'd visited the bookshop a few times, I think he was. A bit keen? Quite. Keen on Maria and I don't think she necessarily reciprocated that same keenness, but she was very friendly and nice. And so he didn't feel like he couldn't go back.

42:08 Yeah. So he'd, you know, he'd gone and, and, and tried it on a few times, I think. Yes, he was interviewed by the police and two days after he was interviewed he committed suicide. Now that also looks very suspicious. Yeah. So, yeah. Was that completely unrelated or was that, you know, a guilt? Thing. What do you think? I honestly don't know because the other the other stuff I think pulls me that way so. Much. Oh 100%. But then. Then this is. Just like was he already in a in a space where this was something he was contemplating?

42:47 And well, yeah. And just the whole like, you know, I loved her and she died. And so that that's not now a prospect for me. And it was it just that was that just all a bit of a culmination of stuff for him that was going on because you don't know any of that. I don't know. I don't know. I don't want to make of it at all. And DNA wasn't a thing then. So they couldn't rule out, couldn't rule him out and couldn't clear him like. And it wasn't like a standard thing to take a DNA swab from a. Thing no.

43:15 From a suspect, which is what they would do these days, they would get consent to, to take that sample, yes. So we, I guess to this day he still remains a suspect. He's on it. They've he's. Formalist. Yeah, yeah, there was because there was two real estate agents out the front as well, obviously. And obviously ruling out the one that was that she had a relationship with the other guy they haven't been able to find. They've been trying to track him down for a long time. So he's another one that sort of is a little bit.

43:46 I don't think he's got anything to do with more the other real estate agent that happened to both be standing there, you know, at the time. But yeah, so But they still haven't actually been able to find him. No. No one's been able to find him. No. OK, so I'm going to just. We're going to jump a little bit now. Yeah. We're actually going to jump to August 19. Nope. Sorry.

44:13 Yes. August 1998. Father Bongiorno. So in the parish that Maria and the boys lived in, they attended church. Maria was a quite a devout Catholic. She was an, you know, she attended church the well Mark attended the Catholic primary and then went on to attend the Catholic High School as well. Yeah, this was around the time. So we're fast forwarding a fair bit here. We're fast forwarding 18 years. This was at a time when all of those Catholic Church accusations were coming out about priests having absolutely inappropriate sexual relationships with young boys.

45:07 One of Mark's mum's friends found out that Father Bongiorno had been interviewed by the police in relation to sex offences against children. And she contacted Mark and said to him, did that ever happened to you? And Mark said, oh, no, it that never happened to me. Yeah. And this friend said to him, well, what about Adam? And he's. And Mark was like, oh, I don't think so. Like he's never said anything. Yeah, but I'll ask him. Yeah. So a few days later, Mark was driving Adam somewhere. They were in the car and Adam and sorry.

45:47 And Mark's asks Adam the question and fully expects him to just say no, No, I don't know what you mean. I don't know what you're talking about. That never happened to me. But oh, he says yes.

46:02 And he tells the story about how Father Bongiorno, how he molested him and how frequently it happened. And look, if you want to hear details about all that, you can. It's outlaid in the Trace podcast, which is absolutely where you should go if you want to listen to anything or want to know anything more about this case. Rachel Brown did the most amazing job. She is incredible. She's an incredible investigative journalist. Well, I, I, it makes me so emotional thinking about this because this poor boy who had disabilities who felt like he couldn't say no, was subject.

46:55 What and what gets me with it is these priests or Poncho literally said to him, you know that if you tell someone, then you're not special anymore and God won't protect you. So that this is happening because you're special. But if you tell someone, then you're not special and God won't protect you. That he's hiding such a manipulation of someone's beliefs and faith that I mean just find it revolting. It is revolting, he also told so. I mean, Father Bongiorno was found much later on to have perpetrated these just the most horrific acts upon many, many young boys.

47:42 And he told a lot of them that he had very powerful friends and they were God. Yeah. And they would inflict harm upon their families if they told anyone. So in light of this, Adam then tells Mark that the day that Father Bongiorno molested him, he told his mum. So at this point in time, at that very moment in time, the only two people ever that Adam ever disclosed this information to was his mum on the 16th of June in 1980. The day before. The day before she was found dead and to Mark in 1998.

48:33 So in light of this, Mark sort of goes into action mode. I mean, hearing him discuss this on the Trace podcast, he's a 53 year old man or 50 in his. He's in his 50s anyway. Now, yeah, now, yeah, he's in tears discussing this as you would be. It's so. That role, you know that your brother's experienced that, and I can't even imagine. Mark is Adam's protector. Yeah, well, I mean, we should say that. I mean, when Maria, the day of before she took the kids to school that day and the day and the weekend prior, she had said to Mark, if anything was to ever happen to me, look after your brother Adam, which he said that's not something that was prior to that ever discussed.

49:16 Oddly enough, that morning she said that to him, which I think as a mom deep down, I think what she was saying to him was we need to keep a closer eye on him with these things that are going on. I don't think she was predicting her own death necessarily, but she was like, hey, we need to both be more aware of, you know, people around Adam and be. Part of it, but as a 13 year old he was like, yeah, yeah, whatever. Whatever, mom. Get me with scrambled eggs. Yeah. Just like in hindsight, he now looks back at that and he's like, oh, she knew.

49:46 She knew something. This was the the stuff was going on. I mean, I think to to Mark, that was him, that was confirmation for him that Adam had disclosed to her the day before. And that she was going to do something about it, like this isn't something she was just letting go, so. She told Adam that morning, so Mark had gone off to school. She told Adam that morning that she was going to call Father O'Keefe, who is Father Bongiorno's boss at the local parish, and report what had happened. And she actually said to Adam, I will sort this out.

50:19 So Adam's gone off to school thinking nothing else of that, all right? Yeah. He's come home from school and his mum is dead, has been murdered. Now, what kind of internalized guilt must he have felt? This is the thing where his disabilities, I think, have been over. You know, it's shadowed the police officers, unfortunately, as to not interviewing him. Yeah. And I wonder would he have disclosed that to police officers, you know, if he had been asked and I'd obviously not being asked, he didn't. But if he would been directly asked, is there something that you know that could link?

51:01 This up, they never interviewed. Him. They never interviewed him. They. Because they. Assumed he wouldn't have anything to. That's right, Add and actually he may actually hold the key to it all. Yeah. And Ron says that was an. He cannot believe they did that. Didn't do that, he said. It's another one of those things as well as, you know, setting up shop, you know, setting up shop, setting up the the police operations in the shop and in the house being wrong. This is the other big flag of his that he sees that, you know, you can't dismiss someone as not having something relevant to add as as close to the victim as as a son, especially whether they have any disability or anything going on like that.

51:41 They should be asked questions and give an opportunity to give their. Story. Absolutely. So we're fast footing now. I think I said 2018 before it was actually 2013 that this all came about.

51:56 Mark called Ron right away, and Ron took a statement from Adam immediately. And what they discovered through that process of taking the statement was that Adam had actually been not only assaulted by Father Bongiorno, he'd also been assaulted by Father O'Keefe. And they think it happened three times in the preceding weeks to Maria's death. Yeah. Adam's account, which, you know, he absolutely remembers it. Of course he does this with such a traumatic and like it, of course he remembers it all. He was actually able to give a really detailed account of what happened, when it happened and how it happened because each time, unfortunately the events were escalating the the perpetrate, what they were perpetrating on him was escalating.

52:47 And so he was able to give very detailed accounts of that. It's awful, can't even handle it. I just can't. I just can't even believe it. No. The fact that Father Bongiorno was then the priest who was sent to the school to pick up Mark on the day his mum died, blah, blah, blah. All right, So now we've got, I mean, in everyone's mind now we're, we're further down the path, but we've now got two more suspects to add to the list. So we've got Father Bongiorno and Father O'Keefe. On the day of the murder, a man by the name an electrician by the name of Ellen Herko was working on an electrical box at the presbytery.

53:35 Yeah, he saw a man who. So he didn't. It's not like he worked for the church or anything like that. He was just an electric, an electrician who needed to come and fix something. On that day, he saw a man come into the presbytery. He was about 8 meters away from him, so not far. There was blood on the side of his face and there was blood on his arms. Yeah, and all of his hands. And on his hands. And he was wearing a black shirt and black slacks. Or did he describe him? No, I don't. Oh no. I've written down that he was wearing a black shirt and black slacks with his sleeves rolled up.

54:12 Mira. He described him as a short, stocky man, and he said to him, oh, what have you done to yourself? And he said, I cut my faces, my face on the roses near the wire fence. With that, this man this far, this priest goes into the presbytery house and there's yelling in Italian and the the electrician's like, I know what Italian sounds like. It wasn't Greek, it was Italian 100%. What is I guess inferred by that is that Father Bongiorno's gone in with blood all over him. And the housekeeper who worked at the house, who is now thought to be living back in Italy, interestingly enough, was yelling at him and I'm guessing going what?

54:58 What have you done? What's happening? Yeah. They've never been able to interview her or finally no. Yeah. I think they know she's in Italy though, but they haven't been able to specifically locate her. Yeah, and whether she's even still alive. Well, I. Actually, I possibly know she could be dead. Yeah, I actually don't know. Yeah, Ellen Herko now knows that the man that he saw that day is Father Bongiorno. Because as all of this was starting to come out, obviously photos of the priest are coming out with her name.

55:29 And he's like, oh, that's that's the guy I saw that day. That is the man I saw that day covered in blood. Yeah. So he's then made a statement to the police. And I don't know what you think of this, but the other witnesses on the day who speak about seeing, you know, the white T-shirt man and also the black slacks, black T-shirt person, the images, there's two different images of those people that have come out. And I, I could believe that they were the same person described by different people. I think there's some.

55:58 Similarities. I would. I would agree. I could believe someone's saying, no, they are different people too, because but obviously different people's perspectives see different things. But I could believe that they could be the same person. But the particular one where I've said it's like a full body like description that looks like Father Bongiorno, Yeah. Yeah, yes, absolutely. I'm not crazy. Oh, not at all. Yeah. I'm not trying to put something on that. I definitely look at that image and go, well, I could see that that would be a description of him.

56:26 For sure stocky 5 foot I'd like you brushed back sort of thinning. Hair, thinning hair, you know, like your receding hairline and yeah, the shape of the face. And everything. Very rounded face. Yeah, agreed. I think absolutely it could be him. Yeah, the changing clothes. So the fact that someone's seen a man in a white shirt and blue slacks. That's why I was like the black black. Could that be black robes like and then? But somebody saw a man in black. But it was shadowy. Shadowy. Yeah. So that's why I'm like, is it?

56:59 Did he have his robes on? And he's taking the robes off and underneath was white T-shirt. But that that's why I think when Ellen Herko saw him at the presbytery, he was wearing a black shirt. Yeah, right. Not his robe. Yeah. OK. So that kind of throws things a little bit. But I do have a theory about it. But I think this is everyone's theory. So it's not like my my theory is necessarily unique. No. So in 1998, Father Bongiorno was convicted of child sex offences, but not of. Adam. Not, not not of Adam, because at this stage he hadn't made his statement yet, but he didn't like, he just got shunned.

57:43 Like as in they put him in a different what? They did that with so many. They put him in a school, didn't they? Yeah, they did they. Put him out of school, which blows my mind. But kept an eye on him. But they, the school they sent him to prison, Oh my God. The school they sent him to, though, is where the church was sending all of these people that were that those sorts of things were coming out about. So any, any information of like this or that that priest might be doing this, they would move him to this school.

58:13 So all of a sudden you've got a group of them working together in a in one place at a school of all places. It just honestly the. Catholics came out a lot. Together with all this, is it? Oh, no, it's I, I think that we can't get into. No, that's just, but I think it's worth noting at the, at this time as well, like in the 80s, there was sort of like 2 factions of Victoria Police. There was the Catholics and when there was like a Catholic head of Victoria Pol that was sort of the the dominant, I don't know, faction of the police by query whether at this time cover ups were made potentially because these priests were put into the picture.

59:09 Yes, because we find out like there was DNA evidence that was found later once DNA became a thing, there was DNA that was found in this case, but it turns out that. Well, the DNA was used at that point, so they've. Yes, they did it. Yes, that. Were related to this case once DNA came in and they eliminated all of the suspects on the list except for the telecom worker because they didn't have his DNA. Yes, yeah, they. Ruled out the second real estate agent they can't find. Yes, sorry. You're absolutely right.

59:44 Yeah, They ruled everyone else out based on this DNA. Bongiorno. They ruled out Bongiorno. O'Keefe everyone. Yeah. But it turned out that DNA profile came from a piece, an item that wasn't from the crime scene. It had been mixed in and the pieces from the crime scene of from Maria James's crime scene had actually gone missing. Gone missing. Gone missing. Seriously. And apparently this was not the only case that that's happened with. So Ronidal says the Victoria Police don't have a great track record in evidence keeping prior to a certain year.

1:00:25 And this is absolutely the case here. So what actually happened was there was a pillow case from a case that happened I think days after Maria's. Yeah, that. So it was the next exhibit, say it was exhibit 275 and Maria's was 274. The Yeah, the the pillow case from case 275 was put in the bag and box with all of Maria's exhibits. The DNA that was used to exclude all of those suspects, including Fathers Bongiorno and O'Keefe, was. From not related to. That the exhibit from case 275. South, you're ruling out people from actually murdering someone else, not Maria.

1:01:17 This bungle was not actually discovered until Rachel Brown in 2017 started this Trace podcast. And they discovered that not, as you said, not only had they compared this DNA against something completely unrelated to Maria's case, they had also lost or misplaced the bed sheet. The bedspread that was covered in blood. Yeah. And the pillow, The actual, not the pillow case. No, it was the pillow. An actual pillow. Yeah. That was also saturated in blood. Maria's blood. Yes. And potentially the blood of.

1:01:59 Because they, they generally say that Ron was explaining, you know, with the way that this, particularly with this frenzied attack, obviously as they're stabbing, more often than not, a hand will slip down the knife and they will cut themselves in some way. So in, in a, in this kind of a crime scene, it's more likely that you're going to find some blood of the, of the perpetrator because they're going to nick themselves or cut themselves at some point. Yeah, with the that just repulses me. But yeah, that that with how frenzied it is that that will slip and cut themselves.

1:02:34 So they ruled out all these people that shouldn't have been ruled out based on DNA. Yeah. So you basically sort of take it back to square one because they did rule out like Mario, who, you know, run, as I say, Ron's front runner was ruled out only due to DNA in the end. So as much as in that, you know, when it happened, didn't have DNA and he was definitely the front runner, then they got to a point, I think in the 90s it would have been, wasn't it? They finally got the DNA and they tested Mario at that point and ruled him out on the DNA.

1:03:03 It turns out now he's back on the list, you know, So he's another one along with Father Bongiorno now, because we've got further information down the track about other motives. Whereas Mario's motive, I guess isn't as as higher ranked in terms of possibilities. But still, now they're all in the mix again. God, just awful. It's horrible for Mark and Adam. Awful. Just the roller coaster of this whole thing. These two men now men, you know, Mark and Adam, they are dogged and unrelenting in trying to find out what happened for their mom, to their mom and to get some justice for her because that's all they've got.

1:03:47 You know, it's such a horrific or thing for them. Well, I mean, we can probably go down the track now of like, what's what? Then Rachel also discovered in her investigations, which really bring, I think, Bongiorno and O'Keefe to the real forefront of this being. Quite possibly what went on somehow is that she discovered all these other victims of both those priests who have come forward and have told their stories. And they are horrific stories to the point where, you know, obviously they don't have physical evidence of these events taking place.

1:04:28 It is memories of what happened. And so her original reading of one of these victims particularly, she really had to go into it thinking, is this even, is this even true? Like surely this that can't be true, you know, but getting into it more and more and listening to psychologists who have sat down with these people, Ron himself has interviewed this this victim who believes every word he says. They believe that there there is absolute fact here that there was a real well pedophile ring that a cult of sorts.

1:05:02 He said that he was basically being brought into as a victim, being sexually assaulted by these priests and brought into this cult where he witnessed four people being murdered. It just blows my mind. And when listening to Rachel and Trace, which I highly recommend anyone listen to that and have her tell this story more clearly and more thoroughly than we are going to go into it. But hearing like how he witnessed these things and that there were actual news articles written about these things, but it was very just enough, just enough covered like, you know what I mean?

1:05:42 It wasn't like it was a big story and people were like, well, who is this and who did this? They were very. Demanding justice, Yeah, Which I mean, in this day and age. Surely, but it was just reported on enough. It really was odd. Agreed. That there was evidence that, Yep, these events occurred. They marry up with this. This is what he's saying, yeah, but not depth of it of like, you know, we need to stop this and get this, you know, find out what's going on these. People need to be in prison. Yeah.

1:06:15 Or at least sent to trial, yeah. And the way he described times where how people were bound like which connected to Maria and these ritualistic style killings that were happening in with this cult situation. And this Peter O'Keefe, the priest who was the head of the church, he was forefront in all of that and sounded like quite evil piece of shit. Oh my God. Oh, as with Bongiorno. Oh totally. But like if you wanted to rank him, like, yeah, I he was the he was like sort of one of the the leaders of this.

1:06:53 And Poncho was definitely on the on for the ride, which just it's repulsive. Absolutely repulsive and how dare they hide behind being men of faith. The last of like, I just don't understand. I don't understand it. I really can't grapple any of it. Like I just don't. No, well, no. We, it, it is unfathomable. It it's you can't, of course. Yeah, you can't. You can't make sense of it because it it doesn't make sense. Like you can't even imagine. No, one of the suspects that we also haven't spoken about which I just sort of which we're just.

1:07:30 Going to say the same. Thing Peter Keogh. Yeah, yeah. Which I mean, we could do a whole episode on. We absolutely could. So Peter Keogh murdered his girlfriend or wife? Girlfriend. Girlfriend. She was a kinder in a teacher. Yep. And he was. He's a very, very bad man. Very bad. I ranked the Supreme Court judge as bad too, though in some ways. Go on. So Keira was convicted of the murder of of Clear Clear Cleary was her name. I can't remember her first name. I apologise for that. So he was sentenced by the judge, right.

1:08:16 And the reason that was given by the defense as to why this occurred was that she'd broken up with him. Oh, OK. So he used a a term that is no longer allowed to be used in our court system using the provocation defence and the provocation was that she had broken up. No way. The jury had found that he was not a master of his mind at the time due to this, right. So then the judge felt that the judge's words was that Peter O'Keefe felt let down and angry, so he sent Peter Keo. Peter Keo, sorry, my God.

1:09:04 And so the judge sentenced him to a maximum of eight years in prison, and he served three years and 11 months of that and then was freed out into the community. I did not know that. That is disgusting. Isn't that revolting? That is so bad. And the The thing is like, this is the one that he was convicted of. Yeah, as we say we could do. We'll do a whole episode on him 'cause there's. So many things, so much that he did realise that though. So one of so Peter Kayo had a friend and his friend's girlfriend at the time.

1:09:37 She has since come out and spoken about, and you can listen to her on the Trace podcast. Yeah, she's since come out and said that Peter and Maria were having had a brief dalliance. Yeah. And so they were sort of seeing each other and keeping in mind what he's done to his girlfriend, girlfriend, girlfriend. And he was overheard by this lady saying to someone, I will do to you what I did to the woman in the bookshop. Yeah. So. OK, take that as as it is.

1:10:12 At the time of Maria's death, this lady was driving with Peter Keogh and her boyfriend in the car. They were getting close to Maria's bookshop and he's like, no stop, I've got to get out of the car. Things are getting too hot. I can't be around here anymore and would not even go near High St. Thornbury. Right, because there's no evidence that they ever even met and came in contact with each other. But this, this lady has nothing to no, nothing to gain gain by saying this. And she feels like now because he's deceased.

1:10:43 Yeah. Oh, no. She feels like she can speak out. But at the time she's because they asked her. Why didn't you come forward at the time when you heard him saying I'll do to you what I did to the woman in the bookshop? Yeah. And also this experience of him not not wanting to go anywhere near the shop. Yeah. And she said I was definitely afraid I, I would have lost my life, Yeah, had I come forward. I, I couldn't, I couldn't say anything. Yeah, completely get that. Completely, totally. Yeah, yeah, I know.

1:11:14 So yeah, he there is that claim there. But yeah, they can't they've never been able to marry up any like this. As you know, so many things point to this person that was there being someone she knew, someone that, you know, was, yeah, known to her. It wasn't just someone who just walked in the door of the bookshop, you know, kind of thing. And they can't marry up at any point where they knew each other had met. So. But maybe we just don't know. But in 1982, there was a coronial inquest that that found that she was murdered by a person unknown.

1:11:50 Yeah, because of the Trace podcast and that there's so many other pieces that I mean, we could probably took for another hour on all of the other evidence that was uncovered by Rachel Brands and the Trace team's investigation into this. There's that they found hair fibers, They found a book with blood on it. They found lots and lots of different items which within, along with Adam's statement, were taken to the coroner and a coronial inquest was granted for them and the finding was handed down in 2024.

1:12:26 Yeah, it took them a long time to. Come to a long time to come together. Yeah, I think they announced the coronial inquest was it in 2020 and then their finding was yeah, or 2020, 2121. And the finding was was handed down in 2020, in June of 2024. So not that long ago, Yeah. But unfortunately the coroner still found that Maria was murdered by a person unknown. So that doesn't mean unknown to her. No, it just means unknown to. The community, you know, a lot of other times they'll come down with it from their perspective, they believe.

1:13:02 Balance is probability because that's the thing with a coronial inquest, they don't have to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. They can. They can suggest that on the balance of probability, this is what happened. And that should be investigated further. Yeah. So with an open finding like this, though, what the coroner has implored Victoria Police to do is to continue investigating this and has told them they need to have the hair fibers that have been found analyzed. They need to look at the blood.

1:13:32 They need to further investigate Fathers Bongiorno and O'Keefe, who are both deceased. Both dead and would they then potentially exhume those bodies? Well, this is something that I guess would have to come, but I mean, Ron says the exhumation of a body is like the hardest thing to get permission to do, which is completely understandable. I don't. Reckon those two deserve any respect they. Don't. They don't, given everything else. No, I think they just, I mean it costs money, I get that. But I have, I don't think there should be any weight given to, you know, respecting the family or whatever of these two pieces of shit because there's enough evidence to say that they are pieces of shit.

1:14:12 Yeah, I know there are. Father O'Keefe had a twin brother and they do have DNA from to though. Yes, but they do have his DNA. So I guess if they could get a match with familiar DNA, yeah, then yes, then that would be helpful to then go right. We will exhume the body to confirm this entirely. Yeah. But yeah, that's. Whereas they don't have a DNA sample from father Bond Job. No. And it must be female linked because it's mitochondrial DNA that they they they grasp. Yeah. So if you couldn't go down the path of, say, if the twin brother had a child, yeah, that won't actually give you the right DNA.

1:14:50 Well, it comes from the mother's side of the family. Yeah. So we had a sister and they had. Children, that would be. Then that would be right exactly OK. So look, it's it's a really complicated and complex thing. I just have also made a note here just showing how much of a piece of shit father Akif was. He was actually also accused of necrophilia.

1:15:13 And like, that just goes to show how perverted and weird and just totally fucked up this whole thing was. Just I what blows my mind is that there were people that have come forward about this stuff and this church just moved them. They don't prosecute them. It would be very different today. Oh, bloody hope. Oh, it would be. It absolutely would be. It's. Still though, I mean, it's institutionalized abuse, you know, and this is the thing, they still, they get away with this stuff by using this the faith, you know, and they hold that over people that and people don't feel safe coming forward.

1:15:50 Back in the day, I remember my grandma, so my family a Catholic and I remember my grandma, you know, to her, her priest and look, my my uncle is actually a Catholic brother and is literally the nicest person to walk this earth. Like he's an incredible man. But I know my grandmother had so much. I, I, it always, it was something that even as a kid, I, I don't know, I found interesting. Like, it definitely piqued my interest that the priest was like the knower of everything. And I think in those days, that is what priests were to a lot of people.

1:16:38 They were the pillars of the community. You believed what they said, you did what they said. Similarly, like doctors, you know, my grandparents would go to the doctor and not question anything they said. They would do everything that a doctor said. Whereas these days we think about things more critically and we can go and. Google things. Well, that's. True too. But we can go to the doctor and say, oh, actually, no, I think this like these are my symptoms and this is what's going on. And that doesn't seem quite right to me.

1:17:03 Or yes, whatever you can challenge. Think people in authority like that, or people. But back in the day, you never did that. You didn't question them. You didn't. Question a priest. There didn't question a doctor, young boys who came forward to their parents or, you know, to a sibling or someone or a, you know, close friend and said that these things happened to them and they weren't believed. Yeah, because they wouldn't believe that the priest could do those things. I hope that now people are knowing that they can come forward and will be believed, You know, that there's been enough those people who first have done this all credit to be those people who've pushed through to, you know, be vocal about this because it would be have been so hard to breakthrough that.

1:17:44 And all credit to Adam, you know, for coming forward and disclosing this because it really changed the course of action in terms of investigating this case and hopefully at some point. I mean, I'm fingers crossed that this is another Easy Street. Yeah. Because as we both know that we recorded Easy Street and there and we're like, Yep, that's in the bag. And you know that we'll never find an answer to that one, you know, And then I think we recorded that and then about 3 weeks later, there was the massive breakthrough.

1:18:15 Yeah, look. In this, I feel like there's a lot of potential because as DNA techniques get more and more sensitive, I think the profiles that they've been able to obtain from certain things will potentially will be able to get more specific and find more, yeah, more matches that will then link. Yeah, the people who are actually to blame. In this case, and it looks I the gut instinct is we're gonna potentially find out this person is dead who's done this. Yeah, but I think it's particularly for Adam and Mark that that closure that, you know, knowledge of having someone accountable in the sense of just knowing that they've been named publicly, that they did this to their mum, I think will be so much so cathartic for them to be able to be settled.

1:19:02 I think they need that and I think they deserve it. Well, they want 100% deserve. It yeah, let's hope so. I'm, I'm really hopeful that we'll be having an update for this and we'll get them. Yeah, I hope so too. Look, as we've said throughout this whole episode, if you want to know anything more, yeah, listen to the Long Form Trace podcast. It is incredible journalism. It's an easy listen, to be honest too. It's I mean, they're only like 30 minute episodes that she did. But I like she's she's so good and she's every episode is very is very much, you know, like new information.

1:19:38 And it's all packed with information. There's no filler there like it is all very like. Yep. Oh yeah, it's. Very good. She's all over it. And she's. Yeah, the way she presents it, she presents it with so much empathy. Oh yeah, and professionalism. And you can just tell she's so invested in the outcome of this as through. This day many people and Ron, I mean, I loved hearing like Mark say that to this day, Mark Ronnie rules is in contact with him. You know they he will just he's a retired he has no, you know, money in this, you know, like whatsoever he but he will still contact Mark and check in on.

1:20:13 With him and Adam and just even even just a how you going, like, let alone a, you know, we've got some information sort of helping out and stuff. So he, I mean, during her podcast, Trace, the Trace podcast, Ron, it all's retired. Yes. And even to the there's one episode where she says he was three days from retirement and he should have been planning that and doing the various things that he was on the phone to her because this case is the one he wants solved, you know, even yet to this day. Yeah, yeah.

1:20:42 Let's hope in the future. Look, I really feel like you know this case can be solved. I think so. It's, it's potentially going to take time and, and some further development in terms of new DNA extraction techniques and that kind of thing, but I think it's absolutely solvable. I suspect that both Fathers O'Keefe and Bongiorno were somehow caught up in this. Do you have a theory on how that day took place? You know when with the sightings. The only thing that gets me, yeah. So I always thought Father Bongiorno for sure.

1:21:18 Solo I I wonder the thing. So the thing that makes me think that Father O'Keefe was also involved is the sighting of the man in the white shirt and blue slacks. I think that was him. I think that was him, yeah. But then there were only two cups at Maria's, so did only Father Bongiorno come? And then Father O'Keefe was like in hiding somewhere. Like, did they know they were going to be doing this? The fact that both of the priests had molested Adam at this point, they were both, they were both in on it.

1:21:55 They both had something to hide. I think it's not unreasonable to to assume that both of them went there, maybe not with the intent to murder her. Although now knowing what we do know about them, maybe they had intended to murder her. I don't know the thing. And it happened so quickly too, because it was from the time when Maria phoned John. I don't think they were there then. No, not her. I think her original phone call to John, I think was to say to him, I've got the priest coming over. I'm going to talk to them about this.

1:22:37 This, this is what's happened to Adam. I think they had the sort of relationship that she would have been informing the child's father of what was going on. And so I think that's. Why she rang in minutes later. Yeah. She's. Dead. And because I kind of like it's 1 of this little piece of the puzzle that I'm like, if only she had said to him on that phone call, hold on, sorry Father Bongiorno's here. I'm just like it literally. Or whoever's name it was. Or if she had just said so and so's here. It would have been a totally.

1:23:08 Different phone down and walked away from that phone yes it probably wouldn't have stopped what you know unfortunately her murder, but at least we could have named it was in that place at that. Time, as we said back when we were first starting this Yeah, the Fathers were never suspects back then. Nope. It was like, as Ron said, it wasn't even a thought to assume clergy members would. Not clergy members in the 80s, no. Would be involved in something like that. So they got away with it for such a long time.

1:23:38 Well, they both died before. Before they, before anyone knows anything. Yeah, crazy. What do you think happened? I think it's them. Do you think? Both of them. I think. It's hard, isn't it? I know because I think definitely Bongiorno, I think he fits the descriptions of who was seen. But then the black shirt thing gets me. And that's where I was like, well, maybe he was wearing, maybe it was his robes on and off, you know, like, yeah, in terms of maybe he was wearing them, he took them off because he was running us from a scene and maybe put them back on again when he arrived at the church, you know?

1:24:11 And that's OK that I could kind of see marrying those two things up, the black and then the white. Tops, yeah. But yeah, that's but then if it's definitely a shirt, not not robes, that changes that so. And if you look at the physical descriptions of the people who were seen running from the scene, they're different enough. And Father, Father O'Keefe was physically different, Yes to Father Bongiorno, yes. But then the chat, the yelling in Italian in the presbytery, that would have been to Father Bongiorno.

1:24:56 Yeah.

1:25:01 Hmm. Yeah, I don't. Know and look, maybe, maybe they both arrived originally, but one left and one stayed, you know, and so maybe only one was there when Mr. James arrived. Maybe the other one had already left. And that's why there's sightings of different people in a short period of time. Yeah, because I mean the timeline, you know, people, you know, you'd say I was I was driving down such and such St. Oh, it must have been, you know, 12:30. It could have been 12:15 or you know, like 12. 35 like 5 minutes would make.

1:25:31 Exactly. It would make a difference in terms of that, but it might mean that, you know, say O'Keefe has left first and he's seen running around, running away from the scene because he knows, you know, a stab has already taken place kind of thing. And he's like, I'm out of here. But thank goodness you can. I'll leave you to take care of that, will I or? Maybe he went to go and do something in terms of moving the body or? Something exactly. Get something to move the body. I don't know. And so then and in that in between of that, that's when John James has rocked up at the door.

1:26:01 Yeah. And so then there's only one person left in and that person's also then seen exiting the scene. You know, I think there's there's definitely room for movement in both being there. Yeah, I agree. But whether or not. I mean, because I always thought, you know, in my mind originally when I was thinking, yes, the priests are involved, I thought they'd get someone else entirely to actually do the murder. But it turns out that no, with when you hear then the evidence of that James was his name was one of the victims, that his story of being involved in this cult situation and these ritualistic killings.

1:26:34 Nope. They're capable of doing it. Yeah. So, yeah. And that's been so clearly being able to be linked up that that was OK if involved in those situations that I think that we cannot rule out that that was very much a possibility. Yeah. Look, I mean, this is our opinion and our speculation and we don't, we don't know. But look, I think that's my front runner, Yeah. Yeah, yeah, definitely my front runner. I know we haven't, we still haven't ruled out then you know, the Mario and and the telecom guy and things like that.

1:27:08 But to me the the motive of the priests overrules any motives of someone else. Agreed. Yeah, yeah, they had a lot to hide. Yeah, a lot to hide. Yeah, they deserve to rot in hell. They sure as shit. I really hope that they're enjoying living down there. Yeah, because that's where they belong. That's it. All right. Well, I think that brings us to the end of the episode. As we said, so much more to to cover. Oh yeah, Trace podcast. Go for it. There's not a lot else out there. Otherwise you can read the coronial report, which is it's a read.

1:27:42 It's a read. It's like 85 or 88 pages, something like that. Yeah, it's there's a lot of detail in that as well and it shows where it it's very, very clear what the coroner wants Victoria Police to investigate. So yeah, let's hope. That's what's going on. That's going to. Happen in the background happening right now and and I know resourcing is difficult. The cold case squad, you know, they that all of our resources are limited. But at some point, this will come back around and hopefully technology, as technology progresses, we'll get some answers for Maria's family and for Maria.

1:28:16 That's it. She deserves that. She deserves that. Absolutely. All right. Next week, what are we doing? The Manson Family. I just don't even know where we're gonna how how we're gonna do this one. This will be, Yeah. I think I have to get my head in it and, yes, work it out from there. Yeah. I think feel like this is one way we could bring some different stuff. Agreed. Yeah. We'll see where we come to. Yeah, we've mentioned the Manson Family in one of our previous podcasts. What was it? And Hamilton Bird.

1:28:44 That's right, the. Family. Yes, Yes, this will be MKULTRA. That's it. Yeah, right. This will be an interesting one. A nice week of research for us ahead. Yes, yes. So much Thank you so much for joining us again and we look forward to seeing your, you know, having you all join us next week. Don't forget you can buy us a coffee at buy me a coffee forward slash 2 crime besties and please follow us on our socials. We've had so many people join us on Instagram. Please keep that coming. All of the comments TikTok, did we do our shout out?

1:29:21 We did, Did we? Oh, I don't think we did. We had a shout out today, I thought. We talked about it so much before the show that I'm like, did we? Was that then or was that? We didn't do our shout out so we have had the most glorious comment from a listener. Her name is Sarah Cole. Thank you so much Sarah. You made our day. The other day when your message came through, Meg and I were both at work and Meg sent me a message saying check out this Instagram. That message that we just received, it gave us the biggest boost and we really appreciate it when people contact us, so please keep it coming.

1:29:55 And I guess on that, we probably should touch base on where we're at with housewives maybe next week. Oh, yeah, good point. Actually, there is some juicy stuff going down because Real Housewives, we are up to reunion for Salt Lake City. And it is. Oh my God, that's so good. Oh, man, I just love it. It's the best. All right, we'll talk about that next week. Just for you, Sarah.

1:30:20 Well, all right. Well, they weren't. Stay curious. Crime besties. Bye. See ya.